Health: The Long Wait

It was 1 o'clock in the morning when my wife, 48 hours past her due date with our first child, gave my arm a sharp pinch. "The baby is coming," she whispered. She was in labor, and all the things we had talked about for 40 weeks and two days were happening all at once. Luckily, she had taken the time to make a birth plan, which forced us to discuss ahead of time such issues as pain management and what to do if her labor failed to progress. As we drove to the hospital a few hours later, that was...